Suggested Rules for Designing Secure Communication Systems Utilizing Chaotic Lasers: A Survey

Abstract: Chaotic communications based on semiconductor lasers have aroused great research interest since 1990s. Physical-layer encryption using chaotic lasers is an alternative to transmit message rapidly and confidentially. There are some practical devices and setups for optical chaotic communications, which are intuitively considered to be secure. However, there is lack of a set of security evaluation rules for these communication setups. According to the recent literature, we summarize several criteria for optical chaotic communications to evaluate the security and point out some methods to enhance the security. These criteria and suggested rules are very helpful in designing secure communication systems using chaotic lasers. Finally we propose some possible hot topics on security analysis of optical chaotic communications in future.